Today's newcomer to the management of legal information is able to turn to the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) for guidance, whether through its widespread online network, publications and talks, or by personal contacts made at meetings, courses and conferences. It was not so in 1958 when Derek Way was appointed librarian of the Birmingham Law Society. Guidance was often minimal – a tour of the library, a chat about administrative procedures and an indication of useful reference books. Outside London, Oxford and Cambridge, law libraries were usually linked to a local law society or the law faculty within a university and these were managed by a librarian working alone. Librarians in firms of solicitors had yet to materialise. With no other professional body than The Library Association, solo law librarians were in a DIY situation.
Although Derek was a qualified librarian with over five years' experience in public libraries, he was a newcomer to legal materials. Fortunately the Birmingham Law Society enabled him to spend his first month working with his predecessor: during their time together they carried out a stock check and Derek discovered exactly what his job entailed. After this he was on his own, producing monthly lists of proposed purchases for his library committee and dealing with his readers, the local legal profession.
Derek Way.
With no previous experience of legal literature, Derek turned to the introductory texts on a law undergraduate reading list – Glanville Williams' Learning the Law, Hood Phillips' A First Book of English Law and Winfield's Chief Sources of English Legal History. However, as a variant on the saying ‘the best way to learn is to teach’, Derek decided to write about legal materials. His first venture was an article for The Library Association Record entitled ‘The Lawyer in the Library’, published in July 1961, which was submitted to Willi Steiner at the Squire Law Library as a referee. This was Derek's first contact with another law librarian, albeit by correspondence. Three years were to pass before further contacts were made at a meeting in 1964 of the Society of Public Teachers of Law (SPTL) held in the University of Birmingham. Derek attended some of the conference and Willi Steiner, Howard Drake (Librarian of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London) and Mary Blake (University of Birmingham) visited the Birmingham Law Society.
With his interest in law librarianship now established, Derek moved from Birmingham to Liverpool in 1965 to be sub-librarian in the University's Faculty of Law, where he remained for the rest of his working life. Before leaving the Law Society Library, he was advised by Liverpool to visit other university law libraries to see how they were run and for this he went to Birmingham, Nottingham and the Bodleian. Once settled in Liverpool and dealing with undergraduates, Derek wrote his booklet The Student's Guide to Law Libraries, which was published in 1967. This publication brought him to the attention of those involved with the possibility of arranging a workshop for any person working with legal materials – all arising from lectures given by Don Daintree in the 1960s at Leeds Polytechnic.
The first workshop was held in Harrogate in 1968: it lasted five days and was a mix of lectures and practical sessions. Derek was asked to give one of the lectures in place of Howard Drake who had been taken ill. At the end of the workshop those attending resolved to set up a British section of the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) and Derek was elected to an ad hoc committee to look into this, together with Wallace Breem (Inner Temple), Betty Moys (Glasgow University), Willi Steiner and Don Daintree. Derek's account of this first ever gathering of law librarians was published in the Solicitors' Journal.
A second workshop was held in 1969, like the first lasting five days and attracting about a dozen or more participants from a range of backgrounds. At the end of this second workshop the ad hoc committee was re-elected as a steering committee for the establishment of an association of law librarians, felt by all present to be a professional necessity. Derek's contribution as a speaker resulted in an invitation from Willi Steiner to give a similar talk in Cambridge at a course organised by IALL.
Work now began in earnest to set up the proposed association with rules and appropriate procedures, drawn up by Wallace Breem and circulated to the committee for comment. Meetings in London were held in preparation for the first AGM, scheduled for September 1969 at IALS. The outcome of this lively AGM was the founding of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians, an independent association open to all persons working with legal materials and with aims to provide publications relevant to the profession and an annual conference. So far the only literature for law librarianship consisted of Betty Moys' Classification Scheme for Law Books and Derek's The Student's Guide to Law Libraries. It was hoped to publish an Association journal and, at the first AGM, Derek was appointed the Hon. Editor. He admitted being concerned about this, having had no previous experience of editing a journal: he was also very aware of his commitments to his law library and his own home life. In the event his wife's illness and hospitalisation made him decide to refuse the editorship. Nevertheless he was still in demand and the new editor (Betty Moys) soon approached him for an article about his library in Liverpool for the first issue of The Law Librarian.
This was the time for ‘firsts’, the next being the first conference. Derek's suggestion that this should be held in Liverpool over a weekend in September 1970 was accepted. (For many years a September week-end at a university hall of residence was the preferred BIALL conference venue.) As local conference organiser Derek was responsible for all arrangements: accommodation, transport, dealing with applications, and so on, work that covered some nine months. Many of the procedures he set down are still carried out for today's conferences.
Despite the demands of his job at Liverpool, Derek continued to make important contributions to the development of BIALL and its work. In coming years he would chair the Acquisitions Committee (1971–75) and the Law Library Provision Committee (1976–78), remaining a member of this until 1980. His membership of other committees included Co-operation (1970–71), Publications (1971–76), Standards for Multiple Copies (1972), Standards for Law Libraries (1975–80), Staffing Levels in University Law Libraries (1979–81) and, as a committee chairman, he was also a member of the Executive Committee (now Council). Given the small pool of BIALL members upon whom to draw, committee membership at that time was far from a sinecure: all required input for reports, memoranda or contact with other relevant bodies.
Derek continued to give talks at short courses and at the Association's annual conferences of 1971, 1972 and 1974. Preparations for the proposed handbook of law librarianship began in 1971 and he was involved both as a member of the Publications Committee and as a contributor. During the 1970s his various committees dealt with matters covering provision for law in the British Library; an EC bibliography; the Directory of Law Libraries in the UK; standards for law libraries; the Atkinson Report; the Royal Commission on Legal Services; and the SPTL Statement on Minimum Holdings. In addition the Association established regional contacts for the membership and Derek was the Area Information Officer/Local Correspondent for North-East England. In 1976 the handbook, now titled Manual of Law Librarianship, was launched at the first BIALL conference to be held in Oxford at St Edmund Hall.
However, changes in the University Library's regime in Liverpool and Derek's commitments to the law library combined to put his continued work for BIALL in question. As the sole full time law librarian, any absence to attend BIALL meetings in London left the library with minimum supervision and consequential problems. These things came to a head in 1978 and he decided to withdraw from all active committee work outside Liverpool.
Derek has written that he ‘dabbled’ in the work of various committees but rarely can dabbling have produced work of such high standard. He continued to write for the Association and contributed to the second edition of the Manual of Law Librarianship published in 1987.
In 1993 the Association celebrated its 25th birthday at its conference in Canterbury. Six of the original seventeen founder members were present: Don Daintree, Joan Hoyle, Betty Moys, Rashid Siddiqui, Willi Steiner and Derek Way. The following year Derek retired from Liverpool University after 28½ years as their law librarian.
In 1997 he became a vice-president of BIALL, an office he held until 2001. To mark the Association's 30th birthday and the start of a new century, A History of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians 1969–1999 was published in 2000. Compiled by Mary Blake, Derek was her consultant whose advice was wisely and freely given. At the 2002 conference in Liverpool, Derek was made a Life Member. This was the first time the Association had returned to its original conference venue and the ideal opportunity for BIALL to recognise Derek's achievements.
Those of us who met Derek at meetings and at conferences remember him as a small man, quietly spoken, somewhat diffident in manner, who had made significant contributions to the Association's work for over twenty years. This was the professional law librarian. We rarely glimpsed the private man.
Derek John Way was born on 22 April 1929 in Newport, Isle of Wight. He was the only child of Wilfred John and Beatrice Way. His father was a solicitor's clerk. Derek was educated at the local grammar school in Newport. From there he won a scholarship to Oundle public school and then an exhibition to St John's College, Cambridge, where he read history. He was the first member of his family to go to university. He graduated in 1950 with a 2:1 and obtained his MA in 1954. After graduating he chose a career in librarianship and studied at Spring Grove Polytechnic in Isleworth. He joined The Library Association and obtained his ALA in 1953 and his FLA in 1958.
Derek was employed in the Shropshire public library service in Shrewsbury from 1951 to 1957 and then moved to West Bromwich Reference Library. In 1958 he was appointed librarian of the Birmingham Law Society, a job he himself thought would be for three to five years – and one that would guarantee free Saturday afternoons! His subsequent move to Liverpool has already been described.
Derek's interests and hobbies were wide-ranging. He was a cross-country runner at Oundle and Cambridge; he was a keen cyclist and walker and he rambled across Britain and overseas. He was a willing volunteer and, as an undergraduate, was secretary to the newly formed UN Association branch at Cambridge. He was on the local YHA committee in Shrewsbury and at Heswall in Cheshire (his home for many years) where he also supported Helplink as a volunteer driver. As a keen gardener, he served in various roles in the local National Trust Association and was a Friend of Ness Gardens in Heswall. He was also an active member of his local church.
In 1958, whilst on a walking holiday in the Lake District, Derek met Mildred McCorduck, a teacher from Ireland. They married the following year in Monkstown, Co. Dublin, Mildred's home town. Mildred had taught Gaelic and Spanish in Ireland and continued to teach after their marriage. They shared many interests including walking, photography and gardening. Sadly their only child (a son) born in 1961, lived but a few hours. Mildred died in 2001, nursed in her final illness by a devoted Derek. Derek continued his involvement with local activities in Heswall and with his extended family in England, Ireland and overseas. In recent years Derek's health declined and he was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy. Derek died on 9 September 2016, aged 87.
Throughout his life Derek kept diaries in which he recorded everything, whether major or minor. He happened to mention this when he was made a life member and agreed to extract those entries relating to the establishment of the Association and his involvement in the early years. In his will Derek has given the copyright of these extracts to BIALL and they will form part of the Association's archives. Derek was a modest, even self-effacing, man. In 2003 he wrote in a letter that he regarded being in at the inauguration of BIALL as the highlight of his professional career.
As the Association begins to consider how best to celebrate its 50th birthday in 2019, we should remember that the very existence of BIALL celebrates the hard work and dedication of founder members like Derek Way.
